Great Starter Smoothie
You have been reading up on Green Smoothies but dont know how to take the plunge. Here is a very simple, tasty, and easy recipe for your blender.
Ingredients - 1 grapefruit, 1 orange, 2 cups of spinach.
Peel the orange and grapefruit, place in blender and blend. Add spinach and blend some more.
Thats all there is to it, you’ve made your first Green Smoothie.
What are your favorite simple recipes?
Why Green Smoothies?
Nowadays, everyone seems to want to get healthier, but no one is actually doing it. We all know we should incorporate more fruits and vegetables into our diets, but find it difficult to eat five or more servings a day. Many people are turning to supplements and vitamins, but do they really give you the nutrition you need?
Your answer may lie in a Green Smoothie. Green smoothies are fruit based concoctions blended with a healthy serving of green vegetables. Smoothies are easy to make, convenient, energizing and rejuvenating. If you are busy and on the go, they can be used as a quick meal replacement. Depending on the ingredients you choose, Green Smoothies can help you relieve fatigue, cure constipation, balance your blood sugar, stop/reduce hair loss, and improve mental sharpness.
The great thing about Green Smoothies is their versatility. You can incorporate the nutrition you should be getting, but are not. We all know we should take plenty of vitamin C, just throw some oranges in your smoothie mix. With a Green Smoothie its easy to start incorporating important items like seaweeds, algaes, cod liver oil, etc. etc. into your diet without turning to supplements which may or may not be effective.
Green Smoothies give you a chance to exercise your personal tastes and creativity. Start with some apples or a some fresh berries, add some leafy vegetables, or celery, herbs are also great and add flavor. Pretty much any fruit and vegetables are great for your smoothie, its up to your taste. Specific recipes are out there and good to try, but its important to find something you like.
If you want to make your Green Smoothie even smoother, you can add some milk or even yogurt, but many health experts recommend avoiding dairy products. You can use raw milk or make your own raw yogurt to use in your Green Smoothie. If you need a protein boost in your diet, think about raw organic eggs. Vegans may want to consider soy or rice milk or tofu chunks.
Grasses are a great ingredient for and Green Smoothie. They have tremendous nutritional and cleansing properties and are easy to grow yourself. Even apartment dwellers can grow grasses indoors. Grasses are high in minerals, essential amino acids, chlorophyll, probiotics, and enzymes.
Green Smoothies can also be a great way to get your Omega 3 oils. Flax seed can be added to any smoothie. Its best to use freshly ground flax seed. Keep a coffee grinder next to your blender, grind up the Flax seed and throw it right in the blender. If you grind the Flax seeds ahead of time, oxidation will reduce the anti-oxidant properties.
Fresh is always better then processed. Supplements on the market today are generally not regulated and vary greatly in effectiveness. If you are using fresh fruits and vegetables and preparing it yourself, you know you are getting the full nutrition from those fruits and vegetables.
The “Green” in Green Smoothies
Admittedly the dark green color of many of the Green Smoothie recipes I make can be unappetizing to many people. Some think they can leave out the green and still get the same energizing benefits, but that is just not true.
Throughout history civilizations have known the importance of vegetables. Vegetables have always been part of a meal, and fruits were only used as a snack or dessert. Our ancestors harvested the most useful plants and sowed thier seeds throughout our land. Most of the fruits and vegetables we now eat were introduced into the diet in the 16th century.
Green vegetables provide many essential minerals that are not found in fruit, including calcium, magnesium and selenium. Most fruits we eat today are very low in calcium. Thats why you see things like “Fortified” fruit jucies, by themselves, they just dont have enough nutrients. Similar to my discussion of supplements and vitamins compared to smoothies, these “Fortified” food products do not allow your body to absorb the vitamins and minerals as well as the natural source.
Green vegetables are among the most important foods for our health. They almost all have high levels of two important phytochemicals: carotenoids and chlorophyll. These two vital antioxidants are know to protect against coronary disease and protect against tumors. The green color in vegetables comes from chlorophyll, the darker the vegetable, the more chlorophyll. Many of my smoothie recipes contain a nice dark green spinach.
Not all vegetables are created equal though. We have all seen sad looking vegetables in the store. And they don’t only look bad, they do not contain the same nutrients as a healthy looking vegetable. Factors such as amount of sunlight, soil properties, types of fertilizers and pesticides used all impact the amount of nutrients in a vegetable.
Green leaf vegetables are a tremendous source of folates and folic acid (B vitamin) that is essential for cell growth and reproduction . These green leafy vegetables also have a large amount of vitamin C. Most people think of fruits for Vitamin C, but its extremely high in veggies such as spinach, broccoli and parsley.
Preperation of vegetables also has a huge impact on the amount of nutrients that make it into your body. The less vegetables are processed the better
The intake of all of these is essential for human health. Green foods should be cut as little as possible before washing and cooking them to preserve these essential minerals. Just cutting up veggies and exposing them to air allows some of the antioxidants to oxidize. The best method for getting the most out of your smoothie is to go right from washing your veggies to the blender. While we don’t want the foods over processed before we eat them, most people don’t chew traditional presentations of vegetables enough to release the proper amount into our body. Blending the vegetables allows the nutrients and antioxidants to be easily absorbed into our bodies.
So don’t leave out the Green Vegetables just because it doesn’t look appetizing. There are many great recipes that may not look attractive, but taste great and are great for you.
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